On Academic Productivity
Let's face it, efficient productivity is hard. It gets even harder in grad school when you don't have hard deadlines and you don't know exactly what you're doing. Sometimes I feel like I'm digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole every time I attempt to do research. Take a lit review, for example. One paper will lead to another, which will then lead to several others, which will then lead to an entire field you have to learn before you can understand the first paper that you picked up. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with ways to keep myself from falling into a pit of despair and disillusionment.
first, I've discovered that it's essential that I start being productive on things I DO know how to do and things that DO have deadlines. These things typically fall in 1 of 2 categories: stuff for quals, and stuff for class. Even here, things get tricky because there's no guideline for how to study for quals right? I kind of have to just rely on what other students have done and what has worked for them. So you can see how it's easy to get sidetracked on doing this one thing that FEELS like you are making progress, but you never really know.
Then, there's all this research that I'm supposed to be doing that theoretically should help me graduate. I remember saying in college how one of my life goals is to contribute one unique idea to the world. I didn't know back then that this was called "writing a dissertation". I also didn't know that in order to contribute this one idea, I have to read and sort through mountains of literature to see what everyone DOES know and find the holes in what they DON'T know and try to find a way to fill in this hole. This is usually the point where I feel like giving up. The more I read, the more there IS to read and the less I know. sounds like a paradox but that's my life.
And the thing is that after you finally understand that one paper that you had to learn an entire field to read, no one is going to pat you on the back and say "good job!". There's no satisfaction of getting a "good grade" for work that you did. You just hope and pray that it's enough to start with. You also have to chase down a lot of rabbit trails before you realize that maybe what you thought you were learning about really had nothing to do with what you want to do your experiments on. This lack of feedback really gets me frustrated and down.
Does any of this make sense? In short, I now know to 1) start on the things you know how to do 2) then begin the things that you don't know how to do 3) keep trucking along even though there's little to no feedback
At least the weather is getting cooler....
first, I've discovered that it's essential that I start being productive on things I DO know how to do and things that DO have deadlines. These things typically fall in 1 of 2 categories: stuff for quals, and stuff for class. Even here, things get tricky because there's no guideline for how to study for quals right? I kind of have to just rely on what other students have done and what has worked for them. So you can see how it's easy to get sidetracked on doing this one thing that FEELS like you are making progress, but you never really know.
Then, there's all this research that I'm supposed to be doing that theoretically should help me graduate. I remember saying in college how one of my life goals is to contribute one unique idea to the world. I didn't know back then that this was called "writing a dissertation". I also didn't know that in order to contribute this one idea, I have to read and sort through mountains of literature to see what everyone DOES know and find the holes in what they DON'T know and try to find a way to fill in this hole. This is usually the point where I feel like giving up. The more I read, the more there IS to read and the less I know. sounds like a paradox but that's my life.
And the thing is that after you finally understand that one paper that you had to learn an entire field to read, no one is going to pat you on the back and say "good job!". There's no satisfaction of getting a "good grade" for work that you did. You just hope and pray that it's enough to start with. You also have to chase down a lot of rabbit trails before you realize that maybe what you thought you were learning about really had nothing to do with what you want to do your experiments on. This lack of feedback really gets me frustrated and down.
Does any of this make sense? In short, I now know to 1) start on the things you know how to do 2) then begin the things that you don't know how to do 3) keep trucking along even though there's little to no feedback
At least the weather is getting cooler....